


outsourcing

by sodas



Category: Nabari no Ou
Genre: Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7775746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodas/pseuds/sodas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memory never does a dead person justice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	outsourcing

**Author's Note:**

> 100% self-indulgent

"You should really talk," Kazuho's saying, but she's always saying that, and Yukimi ruffles his agitated hand through his hair to cut her off. With some other people, he might jolt his hand outward, a slicing motion, something like a physical break away from their words, but he knows better than to do that with his sister. They've both had bad experiences with outstretched hands in the past. Their father was a man who reached out in anger often. When Yukimi wants Kazuho to stop talking, he moves inward, muffling himself as much as he is her. She appreciates it so much that she shuts her mouth. 

"I do talk," he says, in a rough way that says he's tired. He shuts his eyes, keeps rubbing his head, pulling a face. When he grimaces, it's at his own attitude in the face of Kazuho's intuition. "You know we talk about him as much as we can. Miharu's always gotta stop to take pictures of something, _Oh, he'd like seeing that,_ yeah, yeah, he'd like seeing it but he wouldn't say he liked it. He'd feel sorry about liking it. You know we talk about that stuff."

Kazuho's quite gentle here, though it's clear she wants to tug on her older brother's ear, maybe flick an earring and wag her finger in his face. Instead of playing mother, she looks kind of pained, pointedly focusing on the counter she's wiping down, rather than Yukimi's face. "I know you talk about it, you all talk about it... with each other." She purses her lips, the tension in her own face causing her eyelashes to flutter behind her glasses. "But you're all... hurting. All of you. You've all lost someone, or something, and in more than just one instance. Brother, sometimes I feel like I'm watching a bunch of little lifeboats floating around in a crowd, bumping into each other. I know it helps for you guys to be together and remember stuff together, but you all... need... more..." Her pauses grow a second longer every time, until she's cringing under the weight of her own words, determined to be straightforward but dreading any fallout. Yukimi, for his part, is quiet as he pokes at the side of his empty glass, examining its facets while he waits for Kazuho to finish, even though he knows what's coming. "Help," she finishes finally, exhaling her dread. "Than that." 

He doesn't take it as hard as he might've. "Shit, Kazuho," he says, but his tone is an exaggeration of his anger, stretched out like fraying elastic—more exhaustion than actual ire. He's too worn out to be the man he was before this stuff, and he's thought this more than once: he doesn't want to be that man in the first place. There are parts of him that can't ever change, and parts of him he'd keep the same even if he had a choice, but there's still that feeling, looking back on fuckups, _If I had been a different guy_..., stuff he can't help even as he tries to help talk Miharu through the same thing. So he's a hypocrite on top of it. He shoves his glass toward Kazuho, her cue to fill it back up. "What kinda help you think I need, huh? Pills?"

"I think you need help helping yourself." She's not pouring the alcohol just yet. "Miharu-kun, and Kumohira-san, you're really good with both of them, but you also have to—"

"Oh, _come on_. You don't think that kid has earned every bit of help he can get?" Now Yukimi's anger is more honest, more outright: he's clenching his fist, bracing both his shoulders like he's ready to go stomping around Kazuho's kitchen in his slippers. 

Kazuho doesn't bat an eye at his posture. "You know I'm not saying that," she says, strict as a schoolteacher. "But don't you think he's just as worried about you? Don't you think he'd say you deserve it, too?" It's a good point, even if Yukimi doesn't want to hear it, and he leans back in his seat. Kazuho takes that as a sign to finish, softly: "You've lost important things. Important people."

 _Important people_ falls kind of flat, but Yukimi gets what she's trying to say. The boy he took into his home was a mess, and Yukimi thought for a long time that he'd only ever be a mess. It's pointless for Yukimi to hate himself for that, but he does anyway, because the mess should have gotten to be more than that. Yukimi should have been able to watch both brats grow up together. He should have gotten to be an old fart watching two young men get their crap together and feel good about something. Memory never does a dead person justice. There should have been more to it, and sometimes it makes Yukimi so angry that he wants to sleep it off for months or more. He clucks his tongue hard, elongating the sound with a sigh. "Man. Even after everything, that kid's still a pain in my ass." 

"No, he isn't," Kazuho says. She's finally pouring her brother another drink, despite her reluctance. Sometimes there are periods when he drinks a lot, though Kazuho never wonders why. She knows very well what he's trying to drown. 

Yukimi takes the glass in his hand, slides it along the counter. He stares past its rim, into its graceless liquid, both awaiting and debating the burn, the fog. He's almost thirty, for god's sake, and he's relying on his little sister to help him dodge responsibility even now. Miharu had lined up a playdate with the baseball boy, and Yukimi had agreed to go along with Yoi in tow, so he should be getting ready. Instead he's trying to get drunk off Kazuho's hesitant charity. Instead he wants to pass out all winter. "I know." It's resigned like a mumble, but too hard to really be one. He takes in a breath and then tips his head back, and even then he rolls his eyes toward the ceiling as he pushes the glass back toward Kazuho. "I'm the one who's a pain."

— 

The waiting room is a little too snooty for Yukimi's liking, professional in a way that makes him feel like he's expected to sit up straight, which just makes him not want to. He slouches in his seat. Kazuho's smiling at him from behind one of the provided magazines. She says, "You look like a kid." 

"Whatever," Yukimi says. 

The actual office is okay. There are some big windows, although the view isn't great. There are at least three boxes of tissues situated around the area. Yukimi squints at them, rubbing his neck while he sits awkwardly. He shouldn't be surprised that they're here, but seeing them somehow makes this a lot more real. The guy sitting across from him is wearing a sweater vest and polished loafers. Yukimi assumed he'd have a big clipboard or something like that, but for now he's just leaning forward, arms settled across his knees. "So this loss," he says, "it's going to be something that changes you." _Duh,_ Yukimi thinks. "But it helps, I think, to look back to before it happened, and find parts of yourself you can still recognize. This individual, they were... family?" 

"He, uh... kinda," Yukimi says, because he knows he'd have gotten glared at if he said _yes_ to the kid's face. Brats of that particular strain are hard to qualify, anyway. 

"So, thinking about him... What were some things you felt when he was with you?"

"Hah," Yukimi says, between a scoff and laughter, and he rubs his hand over his face, which is almost smiling. What a reaction. _Yeah, it's the nuthouse for me,_ he thinks. What, indeed. "So, you charge by the hour?" he asks wryly.


End file.
